Boom.
The alarm punched through the corridor like a hammer. Red lights spun. Sirens echoed. Metal shutters slammed shut like hungry jaws.
Ash didn't hesitate.
The first guard who ran toward the alarm panel didn't even understand what happened. Ash tapped his illusion, blurred for half a second, and hit the guard and the scientist at the neck with just enough force to knock them out. The guard and the scientist slumped like a dropped coat.
"Mice! Rat! Move!" Ash hissed.
The rat squeaked in panic, the mice scattered, trembling as warning lights flashed on every wall. Defensive structures unfolded from the ceiling...gun barrels, electrified rods, scanning beams.
Everything was waking up.
Ash's heart hammered. He knew exactly what this meant. They weren't escaping quietly tonight.
They were doomed if he rushed through blind.
His eyes swept the room for any hope, anything he could use.
That's when he saw it, crates stacked near a broken vent. The labels were old, scratched, but Ash recognized the shape through a gap.
Oxygen tanks.
Tiny ones, maybe for workers.
Maybe emergency supplies.
He didn't think. He acted.
"Quick! Open all the crates!"
The rat, even while panicking, squeaked loudly and commanded the mice. The little ones obeyed instantly. They swarmed the crates like a tide of furry workers, biting ropes, pulling lids, and clawing at hinges.
Crack.Thud.Whump.
The crates opened.
Ash rushed forward and started pulling out oxygen tanks, one after another, shoving them into his space.
"Rat! Mice! Get ready!"
The rat darted up his arm, giving frantic squeaks. Squeak (Hurry, kid! They're coming! They're already here!)
Guards were rushing in from both sides. Drones were hovering, scanning. The ceiling devices were locking on.
Ash didn't have time to think.
"Place-no, wrong command, Store!-Store!-Store!...!"
Whoosh.
The remaining oxygen tanks vanished into the void. The mice vanished. The rat vanished.
A bright light from the turret locked onto Ash's chest.
He smiled, even while sweat slid down his jaw.
"Store!"
Whoosh.
Ash vanished.
And the room erupted.
Guards screamed."WHERE ARE THE INTRUDERS?!""There's NO ONE HERE!""Check every corner!""Sir! Area secured! They disappeared!"
The drones scanned the floor in confusion, unable to understand how an entire group had vanished into thin air.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Space....
Ash slammed into nothingness.
Pitch black. Silent. Empty. Cold.
It felt like falling without gravity. Or floating without direction.
A voice squeaked somewhere near him.
Squeak (Kid… I hate here… no light… no smell… no ground… no sky…can't breath)
Ash also couldn't breathe.
His lungs contracted, panicking. There was no air.
"C-can't… breathe…"
He fumbled blindly, his fingers hitting a metal tank. He didn't know if it was floating or he was the one spinning.
He twisted the valve.
Whooooosh.
Air burst out of the tank, wild and cold, slapping his face like icy needles. Ash inhaled desperately.
"Haa… haa… haa…"
His chest loosened. He could breathe again.
He quickly started opening two more oxygen tanks for the rat and mice.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
Tiny breaths echoed as the mice inhaled.Squeak (Hoo… air… good air…)
The rat clung to Ash's shirt, trembling. The mice floated around like bubbles, kicking their feet even though there was nothing to step on.
Ash squeezed the tank between his legs and held it in place. He pulled out the dumbphone. The dim blue screen lit up his face and revealed the scene.
They were all drifting in darkness like lost dust.
No ground. No walls. No horizon. Just endless black...
The tiny blue light reflected off dozens of shaking mice, off the rat's whiskers, off Ash's hair that floated upward in slow motion.
He forced himself to breathe steadily.
"It's okay," he whispered. "We're safe here for now."
Squeak (Safe? Kid…we floating in dead world…)
"Better than lasers shooting at us," Ash replied, trying to sound calm even though his heart was still racing.
He looked around. This place was real.
The "space" wasn't metaphorical.
It was literally a space, a void, an empty pocket, like a tiny world without anything living. The dumbphone's weak light didn't bounce off anything. The darkness just swallowed it.
Ash floated, thinking.
One hour passed.
The oxygen tank drifted slowly beside him, bumping his elbow now and then. The mice slept or clung to anything they could touch. The rat sat on his shoulder like a stressed general thinking about its next battle.
Ash opened his eyes and quietly breathed out.
He had his strength back.
He nodded once.
Time to go.
Squeak (Sure about this, kid…? Out there… the guards… the machines…)
"It's fine alone," Ash whispered. "I have illusions."
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and spoke:
"Cloak."
A faint shimmer wrapped around him, the illusion he had relied on many times.
His presence muted, his heat softened, his shape blurred.
Then he whispered:
"Place."
Space rippled.
And Ash was gone.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back in the Lab.....
Ash popped back into existence in the exact spot he vanished. The lab was a wreck.
Cages overturned. Lights broken. A smell of burnt circuits filled the air. Guards were everywhere.
Ash crouched immediately and held his breath. Two guards passed right in front of him.
One waved a scanner.
"Anything?"
"Nothing. Whatever intruded… it vanished."
Ash smirked softly.
The cloak illusion covered him. He layered another one-wall of illusion, a distortion that bent light around him like a curved mirror.
He was double-layered. Invisible. Untouchable.
Ash moved like he was taking a casual walk in a garden, side-stepping guards and drones as if he'd rehearsed this his whole life.
He knew they couldn't see him. He felt the smooth warmth of illusion energy wrapping him. His mind sharpened.
"This feeling…" he whispered to himself."…I like this."
He imagined walking in the academy like this, too...unbothered, unreadable, dangerous.
He moved faster.
Down the hallway. Past drones scanning the air. Past a machine that shrieked alarms every few seconds. Past a researcher crying over spilled chemicals.
He was almost out.
Then something clicked behind him.
A strange device. A handheld scanner held by a guard walking into the room.
It pulsed once.
Ash didn't notice.
He didn't know it was a device meant to detect movement, even inside illusions that can distort senses. He didn't know that when he was going outside, the scanner had pointed in his lingering direction…
And it fizzled out.
Faulty. Broken. It saved his life without him ever knowing.
He stepped outside the lab.
Walked across the outer hall.
Walked through the side maintenance door.
And then
He was gone in the smoke.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home.....
Ash's feet touched the floor of his shack. He exhaled deeply, shaking off sweat.
"Place"
Whoosh.
The rat popped out. Then the mice spilled out like a wave of tiny bodies.
They squeaked happily, touching the ground, rolling in dust, breathing air that wasn't cold, dark, or terrifying.
Ash leaned against the wall and laughed weakly.
"We did it."
The rat looked at him, tired but proud.
Squeak (Kid… you did good… children safe… we safe…)
Ash rubbed his forehead.
"Tomorrow's the exam… huh."
The rat squeaked something that sounded like a curse and a cheer at the same time.
Ash grabbed scraps of leftover food. Rat made a pile for the mice.
They ate quickly, hungry, exhausted, but relieved.
After the meal, Ash lay down on his mattress. His muscles ached. His eyelids dropped.
The rat curled up beside him like a loyal watchdog.
The mice piled together like one big warm ball.
Ash closed his eyes.
"…Tomorrow," he whispered, "I'll pass the exam. No matter what."
The room grew quiet.
The pipes outside sighed. The city exhaled.
Ash drifted into sleep, unaware that tonight's escape had been far, far closer to death than he thought.
But for now....
He needs to rest.